Food and Sleep
02-04-2013
Sleep is one of the least understood aspects of the human condition, the more they study it the less they seem to know. Even the key reasons for sleep are not understood and rather than narrowing down the options the scientific research only seems to be increasing the options.
However, despite an ignorance of why we sleep scientists are gaining an understanding of what influences our sleep. A recent study found that certain nutrients were linked to various sleep patterns. Unsurprisingly they found that people who ate the most diverse and healthy diet had the best sleep patterns while a high or low amount of other certain foods had effects on sleep times.
They found that very short sleep was associated with a lower intake of water, lycopene (which is found in red- and orange-colored foods), and total carbohydrates, short sleep was associated with a lower intake of vitamin C, water, selenium (which is found in nuts, meat and shellfish), and more lutein/zeaxanthin (found in green, leafy vegetables), and long sleep was associated with a lower intake of theobromine (found in chocolate and tea), dodecanoic acid (a saturated fat) choline (found in eggs and fatty meats), total carbohydrates and alcohol.
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